Rocket · Qingdao, Shandong, China
When to plant rocket in Qingdao
Main outdoor window
9-19 Feb
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
9 March
In Qingdao, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
11-26 Mar
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Qingdao
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Sow for overwintering
25 Sep - 16 Oct
Counting back 59 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Sow direct
9-19 Feb
Four weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
11-26 Mar
Rocket through the year
Against the frost risk in Qingdao
Why these dates
Ready in a month. Sow every ten days spring and autumn; skip high summer, when it turns unpleasantly hot and bolts within weeks.
Withstands -7C and holds usable leaf well into winter under cover.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Rocket are timed for direct sowing 4 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Qingdao.
The median frost-free season here is 280 days, against 30 to 45 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Qingdao
Other vegetables to time
Growing rocket in Qingdao
When should I plant rocket in Qingdao?
Aim for 9-19 Feb in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 20 Feb - 2 Mar - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will rocket be ready to harvest in Qingdao?
Expect to start picking around 11-26 Mar, based on 30 to 45 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will rocket tolerate?
Withstands -7C and holds usable leaf well into winter under cover.